We've seen this question circulate on our socials, in our Discord, and in our Facebook groups...
"I'm working with dumbbells for an exercise. How do I record the weight in my app? Do I record the weight of one dumbbell or both combined?"
The short answer is: You can do it either way! This is one of our most frequently asked questions, so let's get into it.
There is no right or wrong way to record the weight of your dumbbells. However, we suggest you pick one method and stick to it for the sake of consistency. There are instances when the amount of weight you're holding is a combined weight that you're putting on the targeted muscle under tension. A perfect example of this is the Bulgarian Split Squat (BSS). If you hold two 20 lb dumbbells when doing a BSS, the single quadricep is being stressed with a total of 40 lb. In this case, you have two options: record the weight as 40 lb or keep it as 20 lb since that is the amount of the single DB you're using. Another way of performing this exercise would be to hold a 40 lb dumbbell and record it as a true 40 lb single weight.
Whichever way you decide to go, as long as you remain consistent with the way you record it, it doesn't really matter! If you're always going to prefer holding two dumbbells, then you will increase weights based on holding two DBs. If you prefer just holding one dumbbell and will consistently do the exercise that way, then just record the weight based on the one DB.
Remember, you can also annotate if you are recording as a single or combined weight in your notes.